A computing system, such as a cloud computing system, may include networked computing resources (e.g., hardware and software) available for use by clients. Clients may access the networked computing resources via a network, such as the Internet, to configure the networked computing resources to provide a service or to access a service provided by another client. Cloud computing techniques can facilitate more efficient use of networked computing resources by, for example, enabling the resources to be allocated as needed between clients and/or by allocating hardware in a time sliced manner to several clients concurrently. A computing service provider can provide systems with varying combinations of processing performance, memory capacity and performance, storage capacity and performance, and networking capacity and performance. Thus, a client can select a computing system that can potentially be more efficient at executing a particular task.
In certain cloud computing environments, some clients may desire to use hardware that is proprietary or highly specialized for executing their computing tasks. Thus, the computing service provider can be challenged to provide specialized computing hardware for these clients while keeping a mix of generalized resources so that the resources can be efficiently allocated among the different users. In addition, enabling use of client defined hardware within a cloud computing environment can raise performance, security, and/or stability concerns.